Reviews 2001
Reviews 2001
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by music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, book by Roger Allers & Irene Mecchi, directed by Julie Taymor
Mirvish Productions, Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto
May 9, 2000-September 28, 2003
“A Musical To Be Seen More Than Heard”
In 1998 "The Lion King", the second of Disney's feature-length animated films to be made into a musical, won == Tonys in New York, including Best Musical, Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting, Best Choreography and for Julie Taymor both Best Costumes and Best Director . Many people were surprised at this year's Olivier Awards in London when "The Lion King" won only in the categories of Best Costumes and Best Choreography and not Best Musical. Having seen the show, it's clear the London critics got it right. While "The Lion King" visually is an extraordinary theatrical spectacle, it is not actually a very good musical. The plot is not engaging, the characters remain cartoonish, the dialogue is wooden and only two of the songs by Elton John and Tim Rice are even memorable (though that is one more than in most megamusicals). I have never seen something called a "musical" before where the interest was so entirely visual. Julie Taymor has lavished more theatrical invention on this one show than one is likely to see in several seasons of theatre in any major Western city. Normally, the direction and design support the meaning of a theatre piece. Here, I found the experience quite bizarre, since the direction and design are infinitely more imaginative than the original material.
I should say that I was not very taken with the 1994 film. Many things I found irksome there are even moreso in the theatre. According to the programme, Disney gave Julie Taymor a free hand in staging the musical. Therefore, she made the male the baboon, Rafiki, female "to redress the sex imbalance" and hired the South African musician Lebo M to "Africanize" the music by inserting real African chants and training the cast to carry them out. Yet, while Taymor is marvellous in dealing with design and movement, she seems uninterested in directing acting. If she really did have a "free hand", she has to be held responsible for retaining such annoying aspects of the film as the inconsistencies in accents ranging from Black South African to New York Jewish. For the two adult lion brothers, the "good" has an American accent, the "bad" one a British. And worst of all, the hyenas, the scavengers who don't know their place, have inner-city American Black accents and vocabulary. There is no good interpretation one can give this and this was widely criticized when the film came out. Her "Africanization" of the story only highlights these unpleasant carry-overs from the film.
The plot and dialogue are a good deal less entertaining than a children's Christmas panto. As for the cast, their acting and singing abilities are highly variable, though all had to master movement in complex costumes or puppetry or both. The most enjoyable performance is that of the South African Phinda Mtya as Rafiki, the baboon shaman. Hers is the only performance to give the show any heart. Both her chanting and speeches have a sense of joy and wonder about them that connect with Taymor's staging. One wished this feeling could have somehow spread to the other characters. Next Richard McMillan, as evil lion Scar. Besides the enigmatic Rafiki, his is the only interesting character in the piece, and he uses all his Stratford experience to make him into a kind of pseudo-Shakespearean villain. He also fully masters Scar's skulking walk and ominous gaze (aided by a gliding remote-controlled head above his own). Jason Lee Jackson, Carmen R. Floyd and Bill Perry as the three hyenas had more complicated puppetry to do than the other characters besides having to sing and dance. Despite the politically questionable accent they have to use, one has to admire their skill in mastering the complex movements Taymor had given them. Of the major characters, the only other consistent performance came from Saskia Garel as the older Nala the lioness. Her words, both spoken and sung, are clear, her acting good and her voice lovely. Mark Terene as Pumbaa the warthog is also enjoyable although his character has little to do but repeatedly complain of flatulence (yes, this is story's level of humour).
There are problem of one kind or another with the rest of the cast I saw. John Watkis, the understudy for Eugene Clark as Mufasa the Lion King, has great presence but does not have the diction required to bring off a sense of nobility. Rhett George, the understudy for Steven Allerick as Simba, has a nice singing voice but is very poor as an actor. Jeffrey Kuhn as Zazu, the king's "major-domo", speaks all his lines in the same strident, hyperactive way which soon becomes tedious. In his one patter song, I couldn't understand a word. I found Jonathan Wilson, who has turned in many fine performances elsewhere, extremely annoying as Timon the meerkat, the other supposed comic relief, and way too over the top to be funny. The ensemble singers as a whole are very effective in the African chants, but when singing in English their words are seldom clear, thus minimizing further the already minimal effectiveness of the songs.
Given the variable performances, the infantile plot and dialogue and--except for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"and "Circle of Life"--the lack of any memorable songs, it is left entirely to Taymor's staging to make the evening worthwhile. In this she is aided by Richard Hudson's imaginative set designs, Donald Holder's lighting, the wonderful masks made by Taymor and Michael Curry and Garth Fagan's inventive choreography. Indeed, the staging really is THE only reason to see the show. For anyone who has seen Taymor's work for the American Repertory Theatre (e.g. "The King Stag"), there are no real surprises except for the sheer scope of the production. For anyone who has not, there is nothing but surprise and delight. Her work is heavily influenced by the puppet theatres of Japan and Indonesia and by the use of masks in cultures ancient and modern.
For spectacle alone, very little can outdo the first ten minutes of the show when animals parade down the aisles of the theatre to pay hommage to the Lion King's heir. Elephants, giraffes, a rhinoceros, antelope, flocks of birds make their way up to the stage. Taymor's secret, learned from Japanese bunraku, is always to have the puppet manipulator(s) visible to the audience. That is what creates the sense of play and stimulates our imagination to enjoy the suggestion and to fill it out at the same time. Thus, the giraffes are clearly men with molded stilts for their hands and feet and a huge giraffe neck and head for a headdress. Whether a separate puppet is attached to an actor (Zazu and Timon), an animal costume partially covering an actor with parts to be manipulated (the hyenas and Pumbaa) or merely a headdress with an animal's likeness (Mufasa), the actor playing the part is always visible. Except for Rafiki, all the animals are represented in multiple ways, not just as I've described but also as shadow puppets or whole dolls carried about on poles. In bunraku, one very soon comes to ignore the manipulators entirely and focus on the puppet itself. Here, the varieties of representation prevent this and keep the focus on the actor/manipulator.
Many scenes are theatrical tours de force: the wildebeest stampede that kills Mufasa, Rafiki's invocation of Mufasa's image inside her tree, the final battle between Scar and Simba by shadow puppets on a long screen held by people running. Taymor even has actors represent the grasses of the savannah and the foliage of the jungle in ways I've never seen before. Nothing, however, matches the excitement of those first ten minutes when it seems we are ushered into a new world--just before the clunk of the distinctly unmagical dialogue begins.
Most people who visit the theatre only rarely will not be bothered by the extreme gulf between the exuberant creativity of the staging and the total banality of the material staged. Frequent theatre-goers will want to see "The Lion King" for the staging alone. However, if you go to this show thinking "musical", you are bound to be disappointed, since the work itself does not give the lift a real music- or dance-driven show can do. If you go thinking "spectacle" and ignore the plot, dialogue and most of the music, you should be happy since the experience is less like seeing a good story unfold and more like watching a long, beautiful parade.
©Christopher Hoile
Photo: Phinda Mtya as Rafiki. ©2000 Joan Marcus.
2001-01-01
The Lion King